attached pain
by secret-identity-revealed
Summary: merlin killed nimueh. what if she had cast a spell on him right before she died? what if other found out merlin had magic but then has to protect him in order to protect his son? angst merlin. reveal! magic revealed. no slash!
**This is a short one shot currently. I might continue if I get lots of reviews telling me that you want me to. Sorry if spelling and grammar is not good.**

 **disclaimer: i do not own merlin**

If you entered the dungeons in Camelot right now you would see a crushing sight. A young man by the name of Merlin in a cell of the worst kind. With floors that had obviously never been cleaned. They had a film covering it of mold, human waste, and other things that no human being should be kept in. The smell was foul.

The young man was sitting up against the wall just staring at the floor. If you just took a quick glance at him you might think he was dead. He obviously had not eaten in days. He was so pale, had dark circles under his eyes. He was so skinny that you could see his bones through his shirt. He was sick, anyone could see that, everyone could also see that he didn't care, he had given up.

This story is only beginning. But to understand it, we need to go even earlier on this hound mans time line.

Merlin couldn't believe it, nimueh had tricked him. Merlin could say that he was the most scared he had ever been when he faced nimueh and killed her. What terrified him was the spell that she whispered, he had never heard of it before. He had never seen it in any of his spell books before. And that terrified him.

As soon as Merlin called down the lightening and killed nimueh he fell to the floor exhausted. He didn't even have the energy to fight back when a few of King Uthurs Knights came running out of the woods and arrested him.

Back to present time.

The young man was depressed. He was upset that his master and friend prince Arthur had not come to visit him. He had come to the conclusion that the prince hated him. So he hated himself. He awaited his death for days, not moving. Not moving to eat, not even moving when his body ached so bad from unuse that his muscles screamed at him. He just didn't see the point.

Little did he know that the prince very much wanted to go down and see the young warlock, he did not believe that he was evil. But he was not strong enough to visit his friend, he wasn't even strong enough to fight against his father to not have Merlin killed. He had fallen very ill and could not even get out of bed. Everyone was very worried as no matter how much he ate he continue to lose weight and continued to get hunger and hunger. It was no use. There seemed no cure.

At least no cure that they knew of.

The following day brought sadness and despair. The Pryer was built and the entire courtyard was full of people. Shoulder to shoulder, it seemed that everyone in Camelot was there. That is because the young warlock had known just about everyone in Camelot. His smile could cheer up anyone. No one there believed that Merlin was evil. No one except uthur and no one would dare speak against the king. Most of the time at executions people were happy and cheering at another sorcerer being rid of this world. But today not even the drunks were happy. The court yard was solemn and quiet. No one spoke. It was silent other than the shuffling of shoes.

Even all the businesses had shut down so everyone could come to the event.

When Merlin was pulled out everyone gasped. He looked aweful. More dead than alive. In fact he looked a lot like Arthur did. Prince Arthur and King uthur were up on the balcony, the prince was trying to seem stronger than he was, after all the future King can not look weak. But he was not fooling anyone.

Then it happened. They unthinkable happened to uthur. His nightmares came true. It all happened in a matter of minutes.

First Merlin fainted. He fell out of the guards Hands hitting his head hard on the stone floor causing a large gash on his forehead. But the shocker was what happened to the prince.

The prince fainted at the exact same time as Merlin. The only difference was uthur caught Arthur before he hit his head. Yet the prince had the exact same gash on his forehead on the same place as Merlin. That's when it clicked in Uthurs head.

Uthur yelled at the guards to bring Merlin to the castle and put him in Arthur's chambers. And he made sure to make it clear to handle him gently, to make sure he didn't get harmed any further. The guards looked up at uthur with bewildered expressions on their faces but when they saw how serious uthur was they rushed to get the job done.

But they were suddenly stopped by something they didn't expect. A dragon. Everyone gasped and ran to hide when the great dragon dropped down ontop of Merlin. It circled the young man growling at anyone close to him. When the dragon was happy with how far everyone was from him he stepped back and looked down at the dragon lord. He nuzzled him and tried to wake him up. The king yelled at the dragon "do not harm the boy! Please!" Even the dragon was surprised by the desperate tone the king used. The dragon stretched his neck out so he was eye level with the king "I would never harm the young warlock, he is my kin. As far as I can tell you were the one harming him." The dragon growled. "I need him!" The king yelled at the dragon. Everyone could tell that that was a hard thing for the king to admit.

So to end this story the dragon allowed the guards to take Merlin into the castle but refused to leave, he stayed and kept guard of Camelot destroying any threat as Merlin could not.

Merlin was taken care of and soon came back to health, and in turn Arthur did to. So from then till the king died he took great care of Merlin and made sure he was always comfortable and never got harmed.


End file.
